Hello to all in this thread and beyond - 

Prologue: I have an old chestnut (don't we all?) that acts as a sort of 
inscription on the banner under which I trudge along. It comes from RG 
Collinwood's 1924 'Speculum Mentis' in which he speaks of our relation to 
art: 
“...and those parts of the work of art which he (sic) could not in some 
sort have invented for himself will pass him by unseen. . . . ‘How much, as 
one grows older, one finds in so-and-so’, people say, ‘that one never saw 
before! ...' (however) one never sees in anybody's work but what one brings 
to it."   
In the context of the title of this thread (relational accountability), I 
relate Collingwood's observations to a sort of hermeneutics that might be  
applied to the 'reading' of others, where the 'art' is the life of another 
(to which the texts that they may write are but a contributing factor). 

Argument: How may we 'read' each other? I hope you do not think I have 
pulled the following out of context in my attempts to develop from the 
above when I turn to Susie who says that she feels "...ready to do such 
work (and play) with you. I would want our method to come into being with 
us..." and Sarah who wishes to find ways that can invite us to "... 
integrate insights from inside out as well as outside in - in a seamless 
continuum that reflects how we learn." From these sentiments, I get a sense 
that we are trying to move beyond the usual attempts to 'tell me' to the 
point where the invitation/command 'show me!' is wholly responded to (of 
necessity in some sort of dialectical form?). Jack has made that transition 
in some of his video clips and Alan is inviting us to engage with poetry - 
but, needless to say, I think there is a balance to be struck between "... 
that willing suspension of disbelief which constitutes poetic faith" 
(Coleridge) and an intellectually 'safe' hard-nosed analysis which seeks to 
objetively identify standards of judgment. 

Conclusion: We can exchange descriptions and explanations of our 
practices/lives - but almost invariably we remain as mutual spectators. My 
desire is to be shown an engagement between two people that reveals the 
nature of how it is that they are understanding each other (at a values-
level) and thus, implicitly, the form of the living standards of judgement 
they are sharing. Having started as a spectator, perhaps then I can be 
drawn in and understand and share with them - and the consensus will start 
to form. .... Hoping that some of the foregoing finds a resonance with any 
of you, I can only finish by asking 'So how can we evolve processes that 
might make this be likely to happen?'

- Pete